Three O'clock High, and notes on "Trying"

Buddy Revell: You know what Mitchell? You're the biggest #$#^%^& I've ever seen in my life. You didn't even try. How does that FEEL?


Watched a great, if tragically overlooked, film a few nights ago, On Demand.

Three O’Clock High.


A story about a pretty regular high school kid who manages to piss off the new-to-school bully before 9am, and spends the rest of the day going to ridiculous extremes to avoid having to fight him after school.


Pretty basic plot, but was done in a very entertaining manner. Great little nuances, like how the camera flashes to the clock with increasing frequency as 3pm draws near. Or the fact that Buddy may be a hyper-violent psychopath, but is also secretly a bright student. Add to this some minor characters that don’t quite fit into the John Hughes mold, and other creative camera work, and it was a pleasure to watch.


It ends up being not so much a story about a day in the life of a high school kid, as it is a story about how your life can change, when you decide to man up, so to speak, and simply… try.

From a movie pacing standpoint, the referenced quote’s the midpoint. The Main character was going in one (very bad) direction right up until this point. Then he switches gears / goals - the actual plot changes.

It didn’t strike a big chord with me, when I as 21 and probably not 100% sober and watched it one night at the dump I shared with three other guys at college. It was just a movie, y’know?

But watching it from my current perspective, it resonated.

All the important shit, the big stuff, the A-list things in my life that I value.., they were HARD.
It would have been much easier, at each turn, to not put myself out there, so to speak. Less scary, too.

But if I hadn’t have even tried, I’d probably not have my wife, nor my daughter (certainly not my daughter), nor the job I have.

As examples.

I wish I’d have been so wise, when I was 17, 19, 22….


Switching gears a bit, I’ve a class reunion coming up.

The end of this movie reminded me of something that happened 25, maybe 26 years ago.

There was a guy who showed up for one year. This was not unusual. Our school collected the odd guys; someone who needed a change of venue from wherever they had been going to school. Usually it was an issue of hoping that our school would provide more discipline for the person. Those people rarely stuck around.

Other times, like in the case of Eric, I’d guess someone had hoped that he’d be treated nicer in a smaller, more stable environment…..

He was a dork.
That’s my 17 year old brain memory of him. Goofy, didn’t dress very well, didn’t do particularly well academically, didn’t have very good social skills, bad skin…

My 43 year old brain can assume that by the time he got to us, he was used to playing a role, filling an un-desirable spot on the food chain. We were not his first rodeo.

He suffered through the year, not a lot of friends, probably getting picked on by those who enjoyed that sort of thing. And then it was the last day of school, and he was free of us.
You’d expect a quiet exit, maybe, a sigh of relief as he slides into his car and drives out of the parking lot for the last time.

Nope.

In the parking lot, after school, he gets into a fist fight with one of his biggest tormentors.
And even though he had to have known he was going to lose, he stepped up.
He… tried.

Of course he lost the fight. And he drove out of the parking lot for the last time sore and bloodied. I can only hope that he did so with some pride, having met the adversity head on.
Maybe it changed his life for the better, the notion that a bloody nose, real or metaphorical, stops hurting and bleeding after a bit, but the results of NOT trying can last you a lifetime.
Hiding from your problems can become a lifestyle…

I’m probably over-analyzing it, and over-romanticizing the event.
I’ll let you make up your own mind about that.

And to be honest, I’d not thought about it all for 25 years, until after watching the movie again.
I hope I’m right, though, and that Eric ended up doing well in his life.

Oh, and watch the movie already. It's worth 90 minutes of your life.

A man in a car....

The man dropped off his wife and daughter at the pool, and headed back out into the world with a list of errands. His vacation starts in one week, and there's stuff to be done. Further, he's...exhausted.

Just whipped.
Beat Down.

His daughter had a really bad night, sleep wise, and this means he did, too.

He's on his way to get the Subaru's oil changed, when he realizes the car in front of him is not really driving very well.

"Clown." The irritable man mutters. They stop at a stop light, and when itturns green, the car in front does not go.
"C'mon, you $%$#%^ clown!" he says, more loudly.

The car in front of him finally takes off. The man looks around, to see if there's a way around the car in front, before they get to the next light, where he'll have to turn left.
Nope.

He watches the car in front of him weave slightly, as balloons blow around inside of it, obstructing the other driver's view. He's not at all pleased.

"Please go straight, please go straight" he thinks to himself, as they approach the next stop light.

Nope. The car in front of him slowly eases into the turn lane in front of him. He watches the driver adjust the rearview so that she can look at herself in it. He gets angrier when he sees her lean out the driverside window, to check herself out in the side mirror.

"no way this #$^& clown's paying attention to the light." he says aloud, hand poised and at the ready on the horn.

Sure enough, the turn arrow flashes on, and all the traffic in front of the woman moves, while she does not.

"C'mon, you #@$%$%^& clown, GO!!!!" he says, as he hits his horn once, briefly.

And she does, and he does, and they both make the light, and he whips into the right lane to get past her, still upset.

As he passes, he takes a quick glance over at her, and begins to laugh.

Her face was covered in white grease paint, with a large smile painted on.

That's right, my friends. The " #@$%$%& clown" really was... a clown.

the girl who played with fire

Was briefly talking books with folks yesterday, and The Girl who played with Fire came up.
actually, the trilogy came up, and I likely confused titles with plots, but.... just continue reading.


I recalled that I forced myself to finish it, whilst one of the people I was talking to, admitted that she didn't finish it.

I know I frequently miss why a mediocre-at-best book is actually secretly a brilliant work of fiction; so it was good to know that at least one other person didn't get into this one, either.


Here's my review / plot synopsis for the book.

Some little tiny girl named Svenson, with a big tattoo and a brand new boob job, has a troubled past, and is treated poorly by men, all of which were named Svenson, or perhaps Sverngensen. She's framed for a crime against someone named Svenson (or perhaps Svergensen, a writer who was about to release an expose about someone named Svenson, and is pursued by the local police, all of which were named...Svenson. There was a dirty cop, however. His name might have been Svergensen.

The lead male protagonist, Svenson, does not believe that Svenson / Svergensen the tattoo'd girl committed the crime against Svenson, and does what he can to help prove this, whilst nailing his boss, Svergensen. He thinks she's troubled, and maladjusted, and maybe dangerous, but not a killer of anyone named Svenson. Oh, he nailed her, too, before he started nailing his boss. The bosses maiden name? Svenson, I believe. They work together at a newspaper or magazine, which I'm pretty sure was called Svenson Weekly.
Their office was located on Svergensen Blvd.

Oh, and the dwarvish tattoo'd chick with new boobs? all she has to do is put on a wig, and she's unrecognizable by the entire population of whatever country she lives in.

And there was lots of stopping off at 7-11 for random meals, and a trip to Ikea to furnish a big, shiny apartment, likely located on Svenson street. Noone knows she lives there.
We spend more time reading about the Ikea trip, than we would actually spend... in Ikea.

And then Svenson Svenson Svergemsen Svenson Svergensen Svenson Svenson......

The book was at it's best early on, before the plot moved back to whatever scandinvian country in which the main plot took place. Early on, there was action on a tropical island, populated by people with different, non-interchangable last names. I could keep track without graph paper.
And the author didn't feel it was necessary to mention that they all stopped off at the island's convenience store for food.

Of COURSE I exaggerate.

But only a little.

If you're going to translate a novel into a different language, spend more than 5 minutes @ babelfish.com to do it.
Having it properly edited up front would help a great deal as well.

The US equivalent would have been set in Atlanta. All the characters would have had the word "Peach" or "Peachtree" in their names, their addresses, etc.
At least one of them would have had the nickname "Peachy" or "Peaches". There would have been many random, non-plot related mentions of stopping off at the Piggly Wiggly for vaguely named food items.

And after it became huge, it would be translated into many different languages, and some snarky, lazy-minded reader will mock it.

And rightfully so.